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Cooking up the recipe for a modern Stradivarius

THE secret of the perfect violin may lie in saltwater and fruit juice.
Chemist and violin maker Joseph Nagyvary at Texas A&M University in Dallas
says the liquids can transform a mediocre violin into a modern-day
Stradivarius.

The best violins have a maple backboard that acts as a resonator. But today,
Nagyvary says, you just can’t make them like you used to. “The maple is the
problem,” he says. “We don’t have ancient, huge maples any more in appreciable
numbers.” Slow-growing, tight-grained old maple trees have the ideal light,
stiff wood that gives a fine old instrument its sonority.

Nagyvary tried to match the qualities of old maple. He announced at this
week’s meeting of the American Chemical Society in Dallas that soaking maple in
brine and then grape juice removes some of the wood’s hemicellulose, a chemical
that does not contribute much to the wood’s stiffness.

Not only does this make the wood lighter, it also becomes stiffer, thanks to
minerals added by the seawater. Nagyvary notes that ancient maples were
transported to Stradivari’s workshop by stream, giving the old wood a good
dousing.

Nagyvary admits his work is controversial. Many violin makers believe that
the key to excellent sound is in the shape of a violin rather than its
materials. But some musicians think he is on the right track. “I’m sure there
are excellent craftsmen who can copy a Stradivarius to within hundredths of
millimetres,” says Victor Aitay, a former leader of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra. “If that alone were the key, every new violin would sound like an old
master’s.”